If you are anything like me, and can’t quite remember the last time you had your car washed, you may have found yourself stopped at a traffic light next to a vehicle not only larger than yours, but one that is sparklingly clean, shining and flashing as H. L. Mencken might have put it, “like the gates of hell itself.”
You look at it and realize that it’s not an SUV; it’s a pickup truck. But it’s a pickup truck that looks nothing like a working truck. In truth, it looks much more like one of those Tonka toy trucks you might have bought for one of your kids years ago. And maybe like me, you begin to think, hey what’s going on here?
Then you start noticing them everywhere – Pickup trucks, new, shiny, pimped out in lots of expensive chrome after-market goodies. Many of them sporting assertive stickers on their back-windows and bumpers; NFL and NHL teams logos, Harley-Davidson logos, almost always, high-testosterone markers. And worse, those aggressively patriotic messages, the ones that imply that if you don’t entirely share their support for whatever war is in progress you are probably some limp-wristed, commie Jane Fonda lover.
But the most common indicator of a toy truck, of a vehicle the existence of which seems to serve solely to enhance the macho, if delusional self-image of its owner, is its cleanliness. These pampered iron horses look to have never seen a hard day’s work, or for that matter any form of real work that might, heaven forbid, dirty the bed, mar the finish or even get the tires muddy. If it’s a truck, but never does the work of a truck, what then other than ego gratification could be the purpose of its existence?
I look at the guys in the cabs and I wonder; wannbe tough guys, real tough guys but insecure, or is it maybe like the Pete Townsend observation about guys preening; it’s usually for other guys, because women are rarely impressed by this kind of posturing.
Remember to keep your eyes on the road. Check it out for yourself. Count the big, high-end pickup trucks, waxed and shining, cleaner than clean. Then just imagine yourself at the wheel of one of these babies, in the command position, high above those effete guys in sedans, coupes or even SUVs. Imagine how you might be able to drop your voice a couple of octaves, how you could add a swagger to your gait when dismounting. Maybe you’d even be a bit taller. Maybe somebody might mistake you for a real cowboy.
0 Responses to “Hey Kids! Hot wheels!”